The Resistor's Guide To Effective Trollhunting Ifyou're reading this, you're tired of seeing so much nasty troll activity on social media, specifically on Twitter. Well, take heart: this guide is designed to equip YOU with the tools needed to counter online trolls, and do so EFFECTIVELY in ways that won't expose you to the petty (but very real) wrath of those same nasty accounts! It's important to note that this is NOT a guide to any kind of illegal activities: far from it. Instead, you'll be working within Twitter's own guidelines (Terms of Service) to Report troll accounts to the point where they'll be Suspended - hopefully permanently! It's a job that Twitter SHOULD be doing on their own, but the reality is, it's up to regular folks to take down trolls. Thankfully, it’s easier than you might think! ‘This Guide is geared for Twitter, utilizing Terms of Service violations to Report troll accounts. Note: you MUST read and be familiar Twitter's ToS to report accurately. Many people don't pay close enough attention to them and their reports get ignored. It's strongly recommended that everybody read the ToS: it really does help. Readly to get started? Read on! ‘The 3 main components of running an effective Twitter trollhunting group are: 1) Seerecy: NOBODY outside your SMALL group is aware of its activities, EVER. This is the #1 rule to keep! 2) Focus: Reporting the worst / biggest accounts for their nastiest violations is the most effective strategy 3) Organization: tracking of trolls Reported/Suspended to see your group's progress also helps boost morale Welll look at all of these in detail below. For now, let's get things off the ground with: First Step: Forming a Group First of all, trust is essential: you want to work with people who are committed to daily action AND who are actually who they SAY they are. This is a difficult step to organizing online: it's hard to know who to trust, when traditionally people meet in-person to establish trustworthiness. So, make a SHORT list of accounts you have common interests and share causes with, then start a private DM conversation to establish trust, if you can. ‘A suggestion is to have video meetings with people, using Zoom or Skype. If you're feeling uneasy, create an account specifically for this kind of activism to keep some of your privacy. The idea is to see and hear the people you'll be working with, to get to know (and vet!) them: anonymity in this case is NOT a good idea for secrecy As time progresses, you'll be able to move into talking with them regularly to keep up each other's spirits, sharing ‘the hopes you ALL have for a better online world WITHOUT troll noise. It IS possible to achieve! Once you've established a core group, you can move on to the business of hunting some trolls. Bear in mind that your goals are NOT to ENGAGE with the trolls at all. Rather, you're out to REPORT them to Twitter, so you'll have to learn how to recognize trolls and tell them apart from just plain old jerks or ignorant people (there's a lot of THOSE online too). Look at the Resources section at the end of this Guide for basies on how to spot trolls, and their tactics. This will prevent a lot of wasted time / ‘false positives’ as your group quickly learns to zero in on the ‘TRUE disruptive elements that plague Twitter (and every other social media platform today). With a little time and patience, we can get rid of most of these troll accounts, many of which are run by troll farms (more on that in the Resources section at the end of this Guide). For now, let's move on to... pg.1 of 4The Three Main Components of Effective Trollhunting 1) PRIVACY / SECRECY! ‘THIS ISTHE MOST IMPORTANT THING! Humans have a natural tendency to want validation for their efforts, like boasting. "Look at me ma, I took down a BIG troll account!" on Twitter for a rush of Likes and praise for the work they're doing on behalf of us all to make the world better. DONOT DOTHIS! | It’s the fastest way to draw attention to yourself AND your trolihunting group! ‘To be effective, you CANNOT let anyone outside your small group know what you're doing. Period. Secrecy is literally life to spies in wartime, and it will serve YOUR group well if it’s kept completely airtight as you work. This prevents ANY kind of organized retaliation from trolls, especially troll farms with hundreds or thousands of accounts that can EASILY overwhelm individuals on Twitter faster than you can block. It does happen, and you're rendered LESS effective if you BLOCK the very troll accounts you're trying to Report. Also: if trolls aren't aware you're hunting them, they can't Block your account, so you can still see what they do! Avoiding being Blocked is important, otherwise you may need multiple accounts to keep Reporting persistent trolls / ones with multiple accounts, which can be annoying. Avoid this by maintaining your secrecy! Finally, the most important benefit to keeping total secrecy: the weaponization of paranoia ‘Trolls are fearful, angry people, and NOTHING is worse for them than seeing their fellow nasty pals vanish one byone: this paranoia ean be used against them. As their buddies ‘vanish’ from Twitter, they WILLstart panicking as their imaginations run wild, piling conspiracy theories atop wild paranoia as they imagine ‘Deep State’ operatives are after them. Only YOU will know the truth: that the simple, persistent acts of just a few ordinary people to regularly report disruptive troll accounts like theirs are what's taking them down. IMPORTANT TIP: do NOT Reply or even LIKE posts involving targeted trolls! The smarter ones will spot your activity and investigate your accounts. BE A NINJA: tolally silent and non-interactive! In summary: stay QUIET and work in the background. Taking out trolibots, troll farm accounts and the nastier/more vicious trolls out there to make the world a less vile place is reward enough. The operations of just a few groups to date have already made a big difference on various activist accounts, driving trolls CRAZY. Silence and secrecy are your best weapons: use them wisely ALL THE TIME to stay effective. 2) FOCUS Okay, so you and a group of a few friends (no more than 5 or 6, for privacy's sake!) are ready. What now? First, create a shared document (Google Docs or another similar serviee, depends on your privacy needs) to compile a growing list of trolls that need your group's attention. You'll need to keep track of various details like: - account names (to track Ban Evaders, important as trolls often use MANY multiple accounts as backup!) - date troll aecount created (helpful for tracking as above, plus 'batch-created’ farm accounts) - number of followers / number of posts (daily/total as of a set date) - types of posts (memes/personal attacks/etc) categorized by Reportable type (hate, harass, etc) -BotSentinel / BotoMeter rating (not necessary, but useful for any ‘stealth’ accounts, see below) - date accounts are Suspended, so you can check back on them in 1-2 weeks and Report again! pg-2 of 4You can keep a separate, less-detailed list of Tweets to Report, easily sharable with the group to maximize the number of specific Reports that Twitter gets per tweet. It's suggested to use just these items: - name of the specific account - Type of Tweet (use official Twitter categories: Offensive, Threat, Adult, Targeted, etc) - link to tweet (most important so everyone in the group can quickly get there to Report it) Keeping track of these in batches by day is simplest, and lets people review them to see which ones are still up DESPITE the group Reporting them. This is how you Focus on bigger, more active ‘hub’ accounts with lots of Followers: taking THEM down leaves the rest in disorder and often panic when they see Big Guys suspended! 3) ORGANIZATION On Twitter Chat, it's easy to form a few ‘specific’ chat channels for daily communication with your fellow trollhunters. DO NOT DO THIS, as Twitter monitors these channels and MAY decide to IGNORE your group's activities if they see you organizing there to take down trolls. It’s dumb, but it’s been verified to happen. Instead, use a platform like Slack or Discord to create much more granular forms of private communication that ALSO help track accounts more easily. Use as many channels as needed: general chat, Reports, Good Tactics and others as you see fit, but not TOO many or people won't be able to find info easily (or they may stop paying attention!). Regular communication with group members ensures you're all feeling valued for the work. Keeping a channel for specific 'VIP' trolls who keep popping back up / eluding easy Suspensions is also very helpful. It’s also good that members can check in at their leisure and are less likely to ‘lose’ the thread of what's happening, as they can just browse the various Slack / Discord channels to quickly catch up on things. Suggestions for best results - first thing to do is browse a troll account's Media tab and go through their timeline for Reportable images. More than likely you won't need to do more than this, as most trolls have PLENTY of Reportable items there Focus on #Hateful, #Adult and #Targeted-Harassment items as these get the fastest attention from Twitter. - next up: look for #Threats, specifically violent ones implied against individuals or groups. Twitter takes these VERY seriously and it only takes a few to get a troll account Suspended. If they're a dumber kind of troll, they won't tidy up their timeline and you can KEEP doing it after they come back from Suspension until they're PERMANENTLY gone! This is why keeping lists is important, to track multi-accounts that try to evade bans. - DO NOT engage with the trolls AT ALL. Just Report them quietly, make notes and move on. - share your successful tactics with your group members. The more experience you all get, the easier it will be to efficiently find, Report and get trolls Suspended. Their own hate and paranoia will lead to their downfalls. - Celebrate your victories! When your group takes down a bigger/nastier troll, take screenshots and save them toa SECURE gallery in your comm channel of choice. Toast your successes as they grow over time. Other Tips and Tricks - havea few members from around the world, so you can operate 24/7. This annoys trolls, as they'll find it difficult to operate if they know someone’s ALWAYS watching their latest posts to Report as needed, ~ get in the habit of ‘defending’ all mainstream media posts (CNN, MSNBC, Bloomberg, etc) as these have BIG audiences and thus are natural targets for trollfarms: lots of eyeballs for them! Assign different media sources to pg.3o0f4different people and check them 3-4 times a day, as trolls will be scanning for new posts 24/7 to get there FIRST and thus cause the MOST disruption. The same goes for big political figures and political celebrities. - post educational replies on mainstream media, to help make Joe/Jane Average aware of just how pervasive trollsare: they're on EVERY mainstream site, watching EVERY article and forum. Sharing tips about using fact- checking sites like Snopes.com, MediaBiasFactCheck.com and others will help the public start to think critically about what they're seeing. They'll recognize the SPECIFIC taetics / talking points trolls use to distract people and sow doubt online. IMPORTANT: DO NOT REFER to your trollhunting group! - learn how trolls operate! The more you understand about WHY they do what they do as well as HOW, the better you'll be able to counter their activities. However, troll farmers are PAID to waste people’s time this way, so the FAR more effective way to deal with them is to EXPOSE their tactics in public, while Reporting them. That’s about it. If you've found this guide useful, PLEASE share it but do so QUIETLY. The fewer trolls who know about this guide, the better: again, SECRECY is the most IMPORTANT thing to uphold! Good luck and happy trolihunting! Resources Where to start — Twitter's Reporting home page: [help twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/twitter-report-violation How Russian Trolls Operate - Spotting Disinformation and Misinformation Ite: Awwsswbur.org/hereandnow/2019/11) ‘hitns://apnews com/ 40860 sud8782afReatdaaudee79sdo4 - Guide to Spotting Online Misinformation http://www: snopes.com/ap/2020/02/ 07/evborgs-trolls-and-bots-a-guide-to-online-misinformation https: //medium com /dfilab/ trolltracker-how-to-spot-russian-trolls-afédada8veaa Primer on science denial: https //erankvuncle.com /-history-of-flie-the-s-techniques-of-seienee-denial Information and Common Troll Tactics ~ Used on social media and website forums tps: Awwwsthecommentingelab co.uk troll-control/ -EXCELLENT, detailed anti-troll guide! tps: //www.psychologyioday.com/us/bl -living-technology/201408/why-the-online-trolls-roll https: Awww: teamtechnology.co.uk/troll-tacties btml https: //wwwoe en /investigations inside-a-ukrsinian troll-farm Ittps:/ Avww:vox.com/2016/11/24/1265964 /alt-right-trol Guides to Critical Thinking ~ Essential for spotting disinformation / misinformation spread by trolls hitps:/Awww.criticalthinking.org/files/Concepts Tools: https: //techerunch.com/2019/00/13/this-game-uses-troll-tacties-to-teach-eritical-thi itp: Arwen openuniversty.edu /sites/ www,openaniversity.edu/fles/brochures| Critical thinking Open University: pdf More about organizing online political resistance groups: hittys:[/www.guidingtheresistance org! hitp./ blog organizer.com/19 sesistance-organizations-on-the-forefront-of-the-anti-trump-movement https: /Awww:rand org /blog/2020//07/how-vou-can-fight-russias-plans-to-troll-americans html pg-4 of 4